
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990                   TAG: 9005180056
SECTION: A-9 NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE:    EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CONFEREES CLEAR PATH FOR LATIN AID

House-Senate negotiators smoothed the way for passage of a $720 million Central American aid bill Thursday by dropping controversial measures on abortions and the death penalty in the District of Columbia.

President Bush threatened to veto the supplemental appropriations bill if it included the Democratic proposal to allow the District to use locally raised tax money for abortions for impoverished women.

Negotiators also jettisoned a companion measure, pushed by Republicans, that would have permitted the death penalty in nation's capital.

Sen. Brock Adams, D-Wash., said proponents of the abortion financing measure abandoned it because they didn't want to threaten the total money bill. But he vowed to bring the measure up again in the Senate.

"We will be back to pass pro-choice legislation," he said. "We've got the votes."

Negotiators cleared the abortion hurdle and made progress in other areas, but they didn't finish work on the 1990 supplemental appropriations bill. The money bill, loaded with pork-barrel items and extraneous provisions, totals about $3.3 billion. Still to be worked out are differences on defense spending.

by CNB